Ring conveyors of the type described above are especially suited for use in malting towers. In such facilities the barley as a raw material is first soaked in soaking tanks and then transferred to so-called germinating boxes. After having spent a certain time in the germinating boxes, the soaked barley germinates and thereby turns into long malt. In the next process step, the long malt is transferred to the drying kiln and dried to kiln malt. In order to use the available space economically, a number of germinating boxes is usually positioned one on top of another, wherein the one or more soaking tanks are positioned above and the drying kiln below the germinating boxes. The soaked barley is gravity fed by means of a downpipe which is positioned in the center of the annular tower, from which downpipe the individual germinating boxes are filled by means of a system of diverting flaps and feed pipes. A charging and discharging machine is disposed in each germinating box, to which charging and discharging machine the soaked barley is supplied via the feed pipe. The charging and discharging machine slowly rotates above the kiln floor and distributes the total supply amount in the course of one rotation. The discharging of the germinating box is performed in a similar manner, wherein the germinated soaked material, the so-called long malt, is then supplied to the downpipe through a discharge pipe which is disposed in the lower region of the germinating box, through which downpipe it reaches the drying kiln.
A ring conveyor of the type described above is known from DE-A 32 04 924. This ring conveyor has a trough-shaped floor, which is connected to the charging and discharging machine and which has a discharge opening positioned above the charging and discharging machine. In the trough-shaped ring floor a carrier ring consisting of two concentric ring walls and radial separation walls which form individual chambers rotates in a contactless manner. The rotational frequency of the carrier ring is substantially higher than that of the ring floor and the charging and discharging machine, respectively. The soaked material falling from above into the chambers is conveyed over the circumference, until it reaches the discharge opening and falls through this into the region of the charging and discharging machine. Due to the relative movement between the chambers and the ring floor, frictional and shear forces occur along the whole conveying distance, which can lead to a damage of the sensitive soaked material.